Ask E. Jean: How Can I Quit the One-Night Stands and Find a Real Relationship?

Dear E. Jean: I'm a 27-year-old train wreck. I've had only four real romances, and the rest of my encounters have been of the trashy one-night-stand variety. My number is 32.

It's so depressing! I never get asked out and never get a date, but single girls need to get laid too, right? However, I'm worried that my hoochiness is starting to take its toll. One drunken night out with my girls will turn into a one-nighter that can throw me right back where I started: an insecure little puddle thinking, No one will ever love me.

I just don't know how to move on in a positive direction. I have too many bad memories, so many negative experiences. I mean, so many men have rejected me—slept with me and then wanted nothing else. I feel like such a dud. Why is it some girls can indulge in a one-night stand that more often than not leads to a few dates and blossoms into a real relationship? Something is wrong, and I don't know how to set myself right! —Where to Begin?

Begin, My Begonia: Take your age (27), factor in when you began boffing (I'm guessing you were 17—like the majority of American women in your age group), take the number of random shags (32), deduct your "real" relationships (4), and divide that number (28) by the years you've been shagging (10), and it works out to be a remarkably dull 2.8 boffs per year. Bah. Empress Elizabeth of Russia banged that many waiters at breakfast.

Shagging/not shagging has almost nothing to do with whether your encounter turns into "a real relationship." There's absolutely zero proof that women who entertain many chaps are less likely to get married than women who enjoy a mere one man.

As for getting dates, according to the stone-cold Ask E. Jean data over the past 19 years, letters from ladies who can't get dates and have never shagged outnumber the queries from ladies who can't get dates and who shag frequently.

The difference is that you believe that shagging chaps is the reason you can't get dates. (As you say, "my hoochiness is starting to take its toll.") And believing that shagging is turning guys off is the exact reason you are shagging and turning them off. I don't know why you wish them to reject you— there could be a thousand reasons, and I may never guess correctly: You feel unworthy, unlovable, insecure, that there's something "wrong" with you, etc. All I know is that your belief is becoming your destiny. The more you feel fated for rejection, the more you will be rejected.

Change your behavior, Miss Begin, and your love life will change. Blackball the booze. Decline the nitwit "nights out" with your girls. Bar the barrooms—they are the absolute worst places on planet Earth for a vulnerable, tender young woman who feels "like such a dud" to meet men. And early this fall when you do meet a chap you like (on the golf course, at the concert, after the skeet shoot, or while volunteering to maintain your favorite hiking trail), no boning until you tweet me and get my permission. If we decide you're feeling good about yourself, you'll receive Auntie's affectionate "Go get 'em!"

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